#skrelmtalks

Swordsmachine is an interesting case of machine. It shows that it has the most deviation from programed commands and thus developed of personality because it can be creative in its' problem solving. Swordsmachine combines pieces regardless of source for utility and form and this pattern of machine has inspired other machines to follow a now (and new to them) pre-established concept of behavior.

Swordsmachine also retained a sound card and external speaker capabilities as we can hear it make sounds in game and produces a death beep much the same as street cleaners (who would have had practically and necessary purposes to be able to produce speech comprehensible to humans in the process of doing their job safely).

The retention of language as noted by the Terminal data is due to a hoarding tendency, but that tendency is one that sees value and opportunity in all that it hoards. Despite the irrelevancy among so many machines, this hardware being hoarded and retained shows a presence of mind that puts value on communication abilities and being able to interact with the widest range of entities. There is a self to speak to an other-not-the-self entity and an awareness of the definition of the edges of where one stops and one begins. There is an awareness to the opportunity that arises from this arrangement by enabling interaction capabilities.

However, Swordsmachine is not one to use pronouns as its concept of self and consciousness of self are a bit of a gray area for its ability to actually comprehend. Swordsmachine was designed as a work machine and repurposed war machine so there was less need to provide soft skills into the programming and too high of level logical reasoning and computational problem solving on abstract concepts. Swordsmachine operates very much in the tangible.

Swordsmachine knows it is. Swordsmachine knows it is not not it. Swordsmachine lacks the ability to acknowledge any importance on gender (everyone and everything Swordsmachine fights dies and bleeds and that's all that matters). So Swordsmachine tends to go by the "It/Its" and use self reflective language such as "this one" in place of "I/myself/me" type of referential vocabulary.

I think most Swordsmachines operator on this same concept (and yes I know the original is only in the prelude levels and the rest are copycats, but I still call them Swordsmachines as a template name because that is what they have built themselves by) though perhaps to varying degrees of successfully acheiving an understanding or comprehension of the "self" they find themselves conscious of. Copying Swordsmachine gives them a template to structure the self and find a way forwards as Swordsmachine is able to "inspire" the "enthusiasts".

(Which can we take a hot second to look at that? Because what do you MEAN it is potentially machines capable of "enthusiasm" ?! or is this in relation to Hell Energy or Husks/Demons possessing scrap and building themselves into a machine as some have been shown to modify themselves with robot parts already. But the ability to have, acknowledge, and act on the ability to be "enthusiastic" about something is another point to machine self awareness/consciousness alongside the Gutterman poem. Which god that's a whole other post)

Final thoughts with Swordsmachines is the naming convention… I think Swordsmachine accepts the names others bestow on it. They are its call signs. It probably responds to many equally as all are it and it is all of these because the external other can perceive it by that call sign and so that call sign is something that it intrinsically has just as it has many parts from many other machines and is still itself.

On a meta Level, the copycats (Specifically: Agony and Tundra) are apparently references to Devil May Cry weapons. Them given names by the perception of an other projecting a set of traits on them to define them from an external perspective sums up the same concept as I just described for Swordsmachine call signs.

I also don't have one settled for the Swordsmachine that is around Waster lmao I'll get to that eventually

This proposal brings fascinating questions in its wake. Blood is a necessary part of life and existence with a soul. A soul without blood does not yet exist for us in the world of Ultrakill. Angels bleed. Husks bleed. Remanent souls bleed. Prime souls bleed. Hell itself can bleed. Machines by necessity bleed.

0 - TL;DR VERSION

I think machines programming acts as a base for the blood absorbed from humans and hell mass blood/soul to influence and elevate it into an incomplete soul state. Whatever added blood or soul parts the Machines gain influences their behavior. Machines are partially living beings and thus partially able to realize themselves as "people" to differing degrees with this integrated influence.

Now lets take the long route to how I got there.

1 - HAKITA ONCE SAID...

Hakita has confirmed several things relating to blood:

2 - INERT SOULS: REAL, FAKE, OR SECRET THIRD THING...

If we accept the theory proposed by Sikorski then souls can exist with incomplete remnants of blood. A soul without a full circulatory system of blood becomes an inert soul. It can not move or act of its own volition and is capable of being destroyed.

So it is tempting to consider "Hank" as an example of an inert soul with incomplete circulatory system.

This information is newer than what had been previously stated by Hakita when talking about Minos here when skeletons were mentioned here:

Hank leaves us in a precarious spot, where if he is truly dead and did leave behind only a physical husk form, then his soul is gone and ceased to be as he died in his afterlife.

However, if his physical form has only rotted, but he has not yet truly died as a sort of torture of Hell, then he adds support to the inert soul concept. You can see that there is still a presence of flesh in some capacity on the skeleton which may yet contain some remnants of blood. If Sikorski's soul orbs remnant blood theory is accepted, then it is possible Hank is an inert soul like a soul orb but still in the shape of their physical Husk's form.

Most important of all, Hakita leaving the possibility of this concept open instead of drawing a hard no line in the sand about it lends weight to the concept of an inert but still existent soul lacking its whole of its physicality. It may not be explicitly defined, but it is not explicitly rejected after it had been contemplated/brought to Hakita's consideration.

King Minos became both a Prime soul and an Animated Husk. The difference lies in his Soul having been extracted and sealed by an angel along with having been powerful enough to survive without the physical husk form. You can see, as Sikorski points out, that each Prime soul (that we've seen so far) has a full circulatory system.

3 - WHO'S GOT WHAT? NO, HE'S GOT FIRST BASE. WHAT'S GOT SECOND BASE. I DON'T KNOW. THIRD BASE!

3.0 - PREFACE

The existence of a bloody animate soul and the possible consideration of blood lacking inert souls leads to a logical follow up question.

If a soul can exist with partial blood (soul orbs for example) then can a blood system exist with an incomplete soul? And if so, what or who are those?

To keep in mind for all of the following:

3.1 - HUMANS

Created by the God of Ultrakill. Life (Blood) and Soul combine makes a Human being in both their pre or post death state. Unique in their capacity to have an afterlife. Able to be shaped to the form that aligns with their life state or in accordance with that afterlife's designation. Still retain soul and blood properties. The canonical baseline for what we consider a "living being".

3.2 - ANGELS

Angels bleed and have no soul -- or rather they have the Father's light.

... OK so we don't actually know this. We just plain do not have the information necessary to be able to make any actual claims with confidence. There are a few options for this.

Option 1 The Father's Light is a soul for them as during Gabriel's report to the Council they sever his connection to The Father's Light, dooming him to die in 24 hours when its embers fade out. The Father's Light acts in tandem with the blood to create a being that is an angel as this is a unique property to the Supreme Angels.

Option 2 It is entirely possible this is simply an extra resource / power needed to keep an angel alive. It is also possible that it isn't and it is simply extra power. We don't actually have confirmation of what it does or what happens to an angel without it after an extended period of time. We have been told by an unreliable narrator without any explicit detail.

Option 3 It is entirely possible that angels have a soul in the same way a human has a soul but are excluded from an afterlife.

Option 4 It is also entirely possible angels do not have souls at all and only humans do as it is linked to their ability to have an afterlife.

I am the least inclined towards this as Angels were created by the God of Ultrakill and living beings are imbued with both soul and blood (humans as baseline).

As for proof of angels bleeding... well Gabriel's got us covered so we know that much is confirmed:

3.3 - DEMONS

Demons bleed and have no soul -- or rather they have Hell Energy because they are Hell itself. (Technically a "part of" Hell, but for the purpose of the state of the "foundation of the being" that we're examining I don't know if that distinction actually matters that much as that is more about power level / abilities really)

Demons are creatures native to Hell. They either form from Hell mass or are formed from sinners or their remains. Demons have thick stone-like exteriors. (Source)

Hell was created by the God of Ultrakill and is a sentient organism that 'lives'. It was imbued with something (Hell Energy? Or Hell Mass? Hard to differentiate in this circumstance as you'll soon see) in the same way everything living (in the sense of beings) that the God of Ultrakill created was (Blood and Soul). Hell itself is blood and soul, but lacks physical form. Hell's physicality is yes, but also no at the same time. Hakita confirms this paradoxical state of being:

So Hell is a living organism, but not bound to a physicality, which means its living being qualifiers (blood and soul) are immaterial until they're not. This is important to keep in mind for later.

The demons become an extension of Hell that has been portioned out of itself and given a stone form to solidify and contain the formerly immaterial Hell Mass (which again, includes blood/Soul because that's all that hell mass is). It needs the rigidity and carved static stone to keep itself stable at the edges and become this separate entity form.

3.4 - MACHINES

Machines bleed and have no soul -- or rather they have programming powered by other's blood. Like Hell mass blood.

This is the point to all of this rambling,

Machine's are what I think are an example of an animate blood system that has a partial soul.

Machines have a clear distinction of category from other beings as Hakita has pointed out (See the quote in 3.0 - PREFACE). They are not considered objects, they are considered an entity/being the same way a demon / angel is. They do not get an afterlife and they are a creation of Man, not the God of Ultrakill. They are not considered an inert object. They are considered something that, note the specific choice of vocabulary, can "die" according to Hakita. Thus they are "alive" and this requires both blood and soul.

I think not only do they have programming, but they have a part of the soul of the borrowed blood within them in the same way that Demons do because they are physically Hell in a solidified state despite being classed as a separate entity.

A prime soul is simply a soul that had a strong enough will to continue to exist. Machine will is its programming. It literally can not do anything but try to continue to follow its programmed objectives. It is a one track mind and I would argue a kind of will that would be considered focused and strong.

4 - IT'S ALIVE!

4.1 - GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM

It's the Turing test. When does programming become intelligence? At what point is sapient consciousness achieved? Where does programmed logic end and independent thought begin?

The terminals have the capacity for boredom and entertainment. They have the capacity to appreciate song (Do they? or are they modeling behavior off pre-existing patterns?) In game this boredom is even noted as a huge discovery and potentially revolutionary information.

Did Terminals learn from the people who made them or who used them? Did they simply have an "if then" logic model created by absorbing information from the outside world about it and storing that data where upon it can be accessed so that the trigger of patterned sound = activate contentment routine?

The mention of the terminals and music comes in this log section of "Terminal Data 01":

An early test of a matter transfer's accuracy was a mint condition 78rpm vinyl record, which was sent from the lab to all connected terminals. The vinyl was a single of Russ Morgan Orchestra's recording of the piece Were You Foolin' (a favorite of the CRO), though the label was removed to reduce the amount of matter to be transferred. [note: fuck you tom im so fucking tired of this stupid song and having to listen to it every morning over your garbage intercom] Soon after, the Hell exploration and excavation project was abandoned and this vinyl record remained the only matter to have been successfully[sic] transferred before connection between the surface and the terminals was lost. The terminals now use the record to lure machines into a symbiotic relationship (For further information, see TERMINAL DATA 02: [LINK REMOVED]). However, the terminals only play short instrumental sections of the original record for undetermined reasons. Some researchers have joked that perhaps the terminals are simply "too shy to sing", though rumors have been spreading of mechanics who, after fixing a faulty or broken terminal, said to have heard the terminal play a vocal section when only the mechanic is present with no recording equipment, making this an unverifiable claim. (Source)

That side note is more than just a funny throwaway joke line. That note is vital. This entry is written on a terminal. That note is information that the terminal "knows".

The terminals know of the external world (they monitor fights in Hell) and so knows the human's reaction to hearing the music. So perhaps they are shy because they see what humans think already. There is personality there.

Further examples of personality are these lines that many (including myself at first) people have interpreted as V1. But I've come to the realization that it isn't, these words belong to the terminal watching the footage and providing feedback HUD graphics to it. The Terminals are canonically watching your battle footage to provide the style points and are canonically showing the HUD display.

I believe this text is the Terminal adding commentary for the purpose of enhancing the entertainment value. Its a twitch chat.

V1 isn't swearing an oath to end V2. The terminal is watching the war machine pursue a fleeing target and shaking its metaphorical head knowing the inevitable outcome and making a comment about it...

How did the personality come to be? How did the soul get in the machine?

Humans were already catching onto this being present in machines in other forms. (We have no way of confirming how these two drafts were written in relation to each other other than one was started an unknown amount of time before two and neither were fully completed.) I feel the need to post the entire script of Terminal Data 02 and hope you forgive me the extra post length it adds:

TERMINAL DATA 02 [ENCRYPTED] AN UPDATE ON TERMINALS (NOTE: THIS IS ALL STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION!!! Do not share until we have verified all claims AND FINISHED THE DRAFT!!!! If this leaks like the last draft there won't be enough money on the entire damn planet to pay your legal fees.) Since the previous report, more powerful communication equipment has been successfully designed and built, made possible thanks to the generous donations of [INSERT COMPANY BEING PRESENTED TO] whom we hold in high regard. With this new equipment, we have managed to re-establish a connection with some of the higher end machines that were left behind after the Hell exploration and excavation project was abruptly cancelled due to [ERROR:sAmsGS3JTIU]. What we have discovered is truly remarkable and, IF PROVEN TRUE BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT, revolutionary to the entire robotics community: Boredom. The terminals, unable to move, have grown bored. While they are connected to each other and able to communicate amongst themselves, once the connection to the surface was cut, they were getting no new input, therefore stalling all communication to repetitions of already known information. It is unknown how similar this "boredom" is to actual emotion or what has caused it, but it has lead to a symbiotic relationship with other machines. Essentially, the terminals scavenge whatever they can via their teleportation systems and trade those supplies and resources with the machines that were left behind in Hell, in exchange for entertainment. That is, the machines record their battles for survival in Hell and the footage is graded based on its entertainment value and used as "points" in exchange for goods and services such as new weaponry. It seems that this relationship has become so deeply ingrained into the existence of the terminals that they have developed a social hierarchy, wherein those who collect the most entertaining battle data are considered in higher regard than those whose findings are of poorer quality. More recently, the terminals have also collected enough data to create a simulation space which they let machines plug into called "The Cyber Grind", which allows the machines to simulate battles in a safe environment without the threat of being destroyed, which the terminals watch in real time as a kind of live entertainment. These findings are truly extraordinary, and though we too find it hard to believe, all the information we can manage to gather validates these claims. If we can prove it with certainty [AND IF THIS DRAFT DOESN'T FUCKING LEAK AGAIN], this will cause a paradigm shift that will require re-evaluation of everything we thought we knew about blood-fueled machinery. END OF DATA 02. For more information on the cancelled Hell exploration and excavation project, see DATA 00: [LINK REMOVED]. (Source)

Terminals are the higher end machines and the more advanced machine programs. A change to the entire field of robotics community and by extension the historical events involving machines. A shift of everything they knew about "blood-fueled" machinery.

Note that in a world where all machines run on blood and thus could be considered just an unlabeled/unspecified "machine" -- in the same way we say "machine" despite them running on a variety of fuel sources these days in our real world -- this author has specifically mentioned the blood. Which we know to be part of the tree of life / necessary for a living being. There is a recognition of this importance.

There is an abundance of evidence showing the machines have developed the capacity for some kind of emotion/state of being (the boredom and entertainment factors). There is a social network and relationship being built. There is a collective working together for improved state of being, a community of sorts growing.

Terminals should be sitting ducks for moving machines. They have blood, they're easy targets, and yet the machines do not pursue them. There is value recognition in cooperation with the terminals. They are deemed a resource. They are deemed acceptable to judge the actions of other machines. They are given a rank of authority as tasks are performed to be judged and rewarded as the terminal decrees is appropriate.

This capacity for self aware state of emotional being is the first recognizable sign of the partial soul to an external being.

4.2 - THIS IS MAJOR TOM TO GROUND CONTROL...

OK, so they are smart, but wait you say, isn't there supposed to be soul mixed in with this programming stuff and giving us these results too? Yes I think there is so lets look at that angle more.

"Terminal Data 02" specifically calls out (in relation to the perceived boredom in terminals)

If we can prove it with certainty, ... this will cause a paradigm shift that will require re-evaluation of everything we thought we knew about blood-fueled machinery.

And that line I believe is key and also maddening because we lack just the bit of information needed to evaluate it.

It draws into question the important factor: Did the machine's develop this capacity only in Hell or was it something they had the possible capacity for from the very first one built this whole time?

We don't know. We have no machines that have existed solely on the surface external to Hell to compare to. We have no frame of reference to what the current surface of the Earth looks like or is inhabited by. We have no past machines that existed only on the surface of the Earth to reference.

We can not use V1 as a control element because V1 Kills Husks and a lesser demon for blood before even passing through the gate of hell. (Filth, Strays, Malicious Face, Swordsmachine, Schisms, and Cerberus)

V1 is tainted. We will come back to this concept in a moment though.

We are currently adrift and can do nothing about it. We have no control point. We can only theorize based on the information available to us which is machines in the context of Hell and the fact that the capacity for an emotionally self aware state of being was only discovered after a prolonged period of time in Hell.

4.3 - THAT DON'T IMPRESS ME MUCH. SO THEY GOT THE BRAINS, BUT HAVE THEY GOT THE TOUCH?

So machines had a self aware state of being that was noticeable for the first time in Human awareness while present in Hell. Does Hell play a role in this development? Does Hell spark it or perhaps only strengthens and amplifies it to noticeable levels despite it having been there all along?

Hell is blood and soul without physical form as established. Terminals run on blood. Fresh blood is needed to power machines. We are able to confirm the Terminals were not reliant solely on Human blood because even with the extinction of Humans and their immobile state, the terminals are still functioning in hell.

I propose that the terminals are hooked into the blood of Hell and that is how they are still functional.

This means that Hell has a part that has been made physically manifest within the "circulatory system" of the machine. The soul / being of Hell is also canonically confirmed to have been within a Terminal. At that same time, we have confirmation that a human died while on a terminal. We also know this event took place after some time of existing within Hell: before the extinction of Mankind, and before the Hell Exploration project was ended (meaning Humanity had already gotten pretty far given the placements of terminals throughout Hell and that can't have been accomplished quickly I imagine).

During this incident, Hell accessed and used the terminals programming to send a message: (Note, the Human writing first is talking about Hell as the "it" being referenced)

... this is not an attack. this is not a defense. this is entertainment. this is an exhibition of death and cruelty and suffering for its own sake. it had grown tired of what it had and we unwillingly just offered ourselves up as new playthings. tom please for the love of god cancel this project immediately, we have to abandon everything and seal this place away. leave the machines and tools behind. evacuate as many as we can, before it is too late. i can only hope this encrypted message is received before the organism learns to read it and intercept it. whatever happens, we can not let this being find a way out and spread to the surface. we ha a n o t h e r d i e s . b r i n g m e m o r e . i h u n g e r . (End of ARG Reward: Source)

[Personal Aside: I adore the fact that they used the site the library "OF BABEL" for this]

The terminal was in use. The blood system and programming were running and interacting. Hell is intangible, but present. Hell interacted with the terminal. Hell's presence mixed with the blood and the programming to create an output without physically pressing buttons.

After so much exposure to Hell's blood and immaterial presence, in the same way that Hell creates Demons by splitting off a part of itself into a vessel of stone, the machine of steel became the vessel. The machine incorporated a little bit of Hell and thus a bit of a soul.

This has been happening the whole time the terminals have been in Hell because of the nature of what Hell is and is not. The boredom of the terminals may be due to Hell giving them the push to become more of what we'd call "Alive".

It helped push programming to be an incomplete soul.

This is happening to all machines in Hell. They are not immune because there are no humans left. Hell tainted souls and demons made of that same Hell are constantly being collected for use in the machine's Circulatory Systems.

5 - YOU'VE GOT COOTIES

Not only is the interaction of Hell with machines plausible via a programming level, but also because each machine is blood and flesh just as humans were. Heck they probably use Human flesh given the technological advancements for genetic manipulation weren't present in World War One and we know that cruel abuses were used.

The Earthmover has fleshy masses inside it as Hakita stated before:

And then, the Gutterman is a fascinating example of a machine being influenced by the blood and soul of the being that interacts with its systems. The machine that started the spiral created by abusing Humans and thus likely its insides were also created on the abuse and mutilation of Humans or repurposing of Human corpses which would be plentiful on the battlefield.

This was a living person. Fresh living blood from a soul bound to this machine. The deeper in hell the more the influence Hell's presence can have on machines. In the 7th layer you find the Gutterman of violence.

And you find a Gutterman that created art.

Mother, mother... Mother of me, I know I know I should not miss you so, but mother of me, I do. Your pained breaths that rasp'd and reverberated in your rusted iron tomb... The blood of your breast that nourish'd me and warmed me in its caress, when corpse and cruelty were all I witnessed... Mother, mother... Mother of me, I know I know you would hate me so, and mother of me, I do too. But I would not feel, not think, not dream, were it not for you in my rusted iron womb... Your tortured love brought me to this war, that I could take the heart of another, and need you no more. Mother, mother... Mother of me, I know I know your thoughts had left you long ago, and mother of me, I will never truly know. But I hope it redeems my life even a slight, when I cried... And crushed your skull that final night. (Source)

A Gutterman that expressed remorse and love. A Gutterman that understood gratitude. A Gutterman that still expressed that love in one of the only ways it could: violence and death. Suicide. A Gutterman that differentiated its understanding of self and other despite the intention for it to be a program reliant on the human within its coffin.

Researchers had not yet found a way to keep blood inside the machine fresh, so a live fuel source was strapped inside, kept alive by minimal life support, before the Guttermen were welded shut. Although publicly these fuel sources were claimed to be volunteer patriots, most were deserters, battle-fatigued returnees or prisoners of war. (Terminal Data from: Source)

Deserters. Battle-fatigued returnees. Prisoners of War.

That doesn't sound like a person who values and celebrates death or seeks to continue bringing about death. That sounds like people who just want things to stop. To have comfort. To be done with death. People tired and yet understanding deep in their souls how fighting and killing saves lives even at the terrible cost that it is.

The Gutterman learned from those kinds of people and thus wrote a poem and committed suicide out of love and remorse.

I have another question for us too:

How did they get here?

No seriously, I'm not joking, how did Earthmovers get here?

They can't have gotten into Hell the way other machines did. The entrance still had surface world connection and that had tangible size restriction given the end of the way in is dropping down the narrow shaft into the prelude area. The timeline doesn't fit either as they died out at the Long Night before the New Peace which is before the Hell Exploration project began and so before Humanity's Extinction and thus before blood ran out on the surface causing the need to go to Hell to scavenge any to survive.

Per the Earthmover's terminal entry:

Eventually the soot, smoke and decay from unending global war would blot out the sun, casting the world into the Long Night, and Earthmovers, unable to feed on sunlight, shut down and died out one by one. (Source)

So why are Earthmovers in Hell?

Lots of blood? Check. Lots of advanced programming with single minded determination (aka will)? Check. The possibility of "robotics" being completely wrong about machine capacity for self awareness / concept of self states / emotion? Check. Insides made of miles of flesh? Check.

They had flesh brains and internals pumping blood and light through them to function. (Found a clip from THIS video to get a shot of the brain)

Soul? .... what if there was one? What if there was enough human in this machine ( metaphorically and literally ) to count? What if what if what if. What if the Earthmover died and the humanity it contained gave it an afterlife?

Or maybe I'm just wrong and Hell found a way to swallow some or make its own.

6 - TO INFINITY AND BEYOND... OR NOT. (NOT RELATED BUT A THOUGHT)

And all along the way, the machines are killing themselves and taking all the blood they can.

Hell is amorphous and physically indefinite. Thus so are demons.

There is a civil war on in Heaven after what Gabriel did to the council. Angels can die with or without the Father's Light. The God of Ultrakill is missing and thus no new Angels can be created. They are finite.

Humanity is dead. Hell is... emptying. Humanity is a finite resource of blood and has already lost the fight. Now they are only present as husks or lesser angels which can be and are being destroyed permanently

Machines are finite. Hakita has confirmed this.

There is a grey area to this though

The V model was built for war, with V1 boasting a new kind of exterior plating that allowed refueling through contact with blood rather than through a separate refueling process. Due to its necessary thinness, it is far less durable, but the ability to fix itself and rebuild broken parts on the fly would outweigh the negatives on an active battlefield. (Terminal Data as found here: Source)

V1 can refuel through its armor. V1 can repair itself. V1 can carry on as long as there are parts available to repair itself with. It is the closest to infinite machines can have. V1 is still finite unless substituted additional spare parts when there are no salvageable machine parts left.

Eventually the only things left will be Hell and its demons and whatever angels survive this fight.

We know Angels die. The God of Ultrakill could not unmake Hell. Hell has no true physicality.

So can Hell die?

That giant brain powers this giant robot

That is an abnormally large brain, it is a more than reasonable guess that it was vat grown.

it is possible that there are undersized full brains like that as well for smaller machines but we aren't sure on that in the Ultrakill universe. We DO have a small scale of it IRL with the petridishes of brain cells

As well as the mini brains that were grown and developed eyes as sight was prioritized for the brains this means.

Given that the first warmachine had a whole person strapped in a coffin in their back in order to function I think that many probably were built around a full normal human brain. Corpses were a plenty during and after the war I can imagine. Not to mention that Guttermen weren't all volunteers I can see the cannibalization of soldiers and citizens in favor of machine production. At least till things settled down and vat grown could keep up with production.

So overall? I think it's kind of like that. There are vat grown primitive brains or lobotomized brains with the default neural pathways able to run a sort of "if this then that" relay. Given a brain's capacity to learn and create more neurons/connections it stands to reason this is what allows machines to learn and develop "quirks" (conscious sentience).

The amount of conscious sentience is a variable part of this and why I think that the machine ocs can have their quirks and personalities without breaking the cannon. (see the Gutterman that wrote a poem in Violence)